Noel Green

Iwas a negotiator and was sitting on the TNNP Management Board, which I just stepped down from in January 2020. We the people of Paulatuuq initiated the park. We approached Parks Canada to see if we could get good protection for our caribou calving grounds. That’s the specialty of it. We wanted to find the strongest legislation for our caribou and land that they are using as their calving ground. So, Parks Canada offered the strongest legislation and from there we negotiated with them. It’s the first and foremost that this Park was set up for.

I would like to recognize our Elders for helping the working group settle the negotiations with Parks Canada—we had a lot of inputs out of our Elders. We would meet with the Elders before we met with Parks Canada, and we have to recognize those people. And, there’s quite a few of us on the negotiating team that’s gone, but not forgotten.

The park was named after “young caribous”—nurrait It came from our Elders. There was a meeting that we had to name the park, and our Elders came up with this: Tuktut Nurrait—which is the main reason for that park. That’s what it was put up for—caribou.

Whenever we go out for our Management Board meetings, I love being up there. I remember there was one spot within the Hornaday River—it was beautiful. Even the rest of our group will tell you the same thing. It’s not far from La Roncière Falls, it’s further up… I’d say about four or five miles up from there. It’s only a few minutes from where we were sitting—that nice, peaceful, beautiful spot. The coolest thing I have seen is those caches. Caribous were crossing that spot for hundreds of years! And they’re still using it. You go back there, and you see all these caches there, and you can see where they put their qainnat/qatjat (canoes) up, on stands. And you see the caribou trails where the caribous come up by. That’s a really cool place! They can hide in the rocks and caribou won’t even see you. And they pass right close to you. That’s how they were getting their caribou with their bows and spears, at that time.

In The Future

As long as our Bluenose-West caribou herds are on the increase… First and foremost is that we need to get our herd back to big numbers that we were used to seeing, back in the 70s, 80s.